Build and run in separate directory - OSX?

[Neil Williams]

On Sunday 12 February 2006 10:19 pm, Mike Alexander wrote:
> > I build gnucash svn regularly on OSX 10.3 using fink. The OSX/Fink
> > maintainer  for gnucash (Peter O'Gorman) also builds 1.8 and (IIRC)
> > svn on 10.4? (Peter?)
>
> Yes, I'm using MacOSX, but not the Fink version of gnucash

OK. Only trying to help. I'm not sure why you want to build gnucash this way 
but you are, naturally, free to do so. I know fink can be awkward at times 
but, IMHO, that is how most OSX users are going to obtain gnucash.

> (I used Fink 
> for some of the prereqs simply because it was the easiest way to get
> them).  I'm building it from the svn source (as I said in my message).

I too build svn on OSX using libraries etc. installed via fink. I have also 
tested a fink info file for QOF so that it can be made available via fink and 
I build pilot-qof on OSX (although because OSX has problems with USB devices 
because pilot-link 0.12 is so delayed).

> My build builds cleanly (with no compiler warnings) and runs fine.

Good.

> I'm 
> not looking for advice on how to build gnucash, I'm just offering you
> fixes that make it build better.

When using an uncommon build method. It has built fine using the existing 
methods on OSX for some time.

What are the advantages of enabling gnucash to build and run in separate 
directories? Not just to you, to other users too. i.e. what do we gain?

> >>         --enable-compiler-warnings=minimum \
> >
> > To get gnucash to work, you'll need to up that level or just leave
> > off the  =minimum.
>
> I'm not using the tarball and I don't get any compiler warnings. 

(setting minimum could mean you are missing some)

> Just because I'm using Darwin doesn't mean I'm an idiot or a novice.

At no point did I intend to give that impression. I was only trying to be 
helpful - all manner of people raise questions on these lists. Sometimes it 
pays to latch on to little nuggets in the provided output.

> Like it or not, Darwin is now the most widely used desktop Unix system
> and making gnucash work well on it is in the best interest of the
> gnucash project.

Of course it is - I'm just not sure that this separate directory build is 
necessarily required for builds on Darwin. (And I do like Darwin, I use it 
and develop on it myself.)

> However, I don't think any of the problems I've 
> submitted patches for are Darwin specific.  I could reproduce them on
> Solaris or Linux, but it probably isn't worth the trouble.

So the question is, apart from these specific tools that you use, what 
benefits are there - for the masses out there - of using the separate 
directories? I'm genuinely curious.

Debian (my other platform) has pbuilder, we use 'make distcheck', fink has 
info files and a similar build protocol to Debian. Each uses their own build 
directory architecture and hierarchy and gnucash does work on all these.

I know Derek has (or had) Solaris and we have maintainers interested in 
providing gnucash for Mandrake/Mandriva, SuSE, Slackware, OpenBSD, 
NetBSD .... as well as our "base platform" of FC3, I build regularly on 
Debian and OSX, David on FC(5?) and the list goes on. (IIRC, Chris - FC4?)

It's a lot of work maintaining gnucash on these platforms - especially with 
the old 1.8 tree because quite a few gnucash maintainers ended up maintaining 
most of the gnome1 libraries that only gnucash needed. We're looking to ease 
the burden on all these maintainers with the 1.9.0 and 2.0.0 releases.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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